The Perceived Impact of Environment on Health in Italy: a Penalized Ordinal Regression Approach

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Stival, Mattia, Andreella, Angela, Bertarelli, Gaia, Midões, Catarina, Tonellato, Stefano Federico, Campostrini, Stefano
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866911531164237824
author Stival, Mattia
Andreella, Angela
Bertarelli, Gaia
Midões, Catarina
Tonellato, Stefano Federico
Campostrini, Stefano
author_facet Stival, Mattia
Andreella, Angela
Bertarelli, Gaia
Midões, Catarina
Tonellato, Stefano Federico
Campostrini, Stefano
contents Understanding how individuals perceive their living environment is a complex task, as it reflects both personal and contextual determinants. In this paper, we address this task by analyzing the environmental module of the Italian nationwide health surveillance system PASSI (Progressi delle Aziende Sanitarie per la Salute in Italia), integrating it with contextual information at the municipal level, including socio-economic indicators, pollution exposure, and other geographical characteristics. Methodologically, we adopt a penalized semi-parallel cumulative ordinal regression model to analyze how subjective perceptions are shaped by both personal and territorial determinants. The approach balances flexibility and interpretability by allowing both parallel and non-parallel effects while regularizing estimates to address multicollinearity and separation issues. We use the model as an analytical tool to uncover the determinants of positivity and neutrality in environmental perceptions, defined as factors that contribute the most to improving perception or increasing the sense of neutrality. The results are diverse. First, results reveal significant heterogeneity across Italian territories, indicating that local characteristics strongly shape environmental perception. Second, various individual factors interact with contextual influences to shape perceptions. Third, hazardous environmental factors, such as higher PM2.5 levels, appear to be associated with poorer environmental perception, suggesting a tendency among respondents to recognize specific environmental issues. Overall, the approach demonstrates strong potential for application and provides useful insights for environmental policy planning.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_01803
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Perceived Impact of Environment on Health in Italy: a Penalized Ordinal Regression Approach
Stival, Mattia
Andreella, Angela
Bertarelli, Gaia
Midões, Catarina
Tonellato, Stefano Federico
Campostrini, Stefano
Applications
Understanding how individuals perceive their living environment is a complex task, as it reflects both personal and contextual determinants. In this paper, we address this task by analyzing the environmental module of the Italian nationwide health surveillance system PASSI (Progressi delle Aziende Sanitarie per la Salute in Italia), integrating it with contextual information at the municipal level, including socio-economic indicators, pollution exposure, and other geographical characteristics. Methodologically, we adopt a penalized semi-parallel cumulative ordinal regression model to analyze how subjective perceptions are shaped by both personal and territorial determinants. The approach balances flexibility and interpretability by allowing both parallel and non-parallel effects while regularizing estimates to address multicollinearity and separation issues. We use the model as an analytical tool to uncover the determinants of positivity and neutrality in environmental perceptions, defined as factors that contribute the most to improving perception or increasing the sense of neutrality. The results are diverse. First, results reveal significant heterogeneity across Italian territories, indicating that local characteristics strongly shape environmental perception. Second, various individual factors interact with contextual influences to shape perceptions. Third, hazardous environmental factors, such as higher PM2.5 levels, appear to be associated with poorer environmental perception, suggesting a tendency among respondents to recognize specific environmental issues. Overall, the approach demonstrates strong potential for application and provides useful insights for environmental policy planning.
title The Perceived Impact of Environment on Health in Italy: a Penalized Ordinal Regression Approach
topic Applications
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01803